In the stillness of dawn, the air was shattered by the piercing cry of bullets, slicing through the delicate veil of night and dew. The symphony of war, devoid of beauty or romance, echoed with the heavy footsteps of death’s inevitable march. It moved indiscriminately, claiming both the guilty and the innocent, a relentless force that knew no discernment. War’s apologists spoke of the fog of conflict, but we knew it to be the searing breath of a monstrous hunger, consuming all in its path. Some were spat out, many swallowed, into the grim depths from which there was no return.

As the mechanical chorus of dawn took hold, with mortars and grenades adding their deadly refrains, I found myself dissolving into a state both terrible and serene. In that moment, I became the sum of my history—a collapse and a rebirth, a fall and a rise. I was splintered and assembled, divided and multiplied. I was death and I was life. Perhaps this is the transformation that comes when one stands at the brink of death, seized by the illusion of imminent rebirth.

The blood that flowed from my wounds felt like the final outpouring of life, my cries the agonized gasps of a soul departing. As I fell to the ground, it was as if I were being dragged into an abyss, the encroaching darkness a cold, unyielding grip. In the chaos of war, I was consumed by the agony of death, a stark end to the fragile thread of existence, with no promise of rebirth, only the finality of an eternal night.

© Beatriz Esmer

Dry Pastel Art – Children Collection